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New York Times
3 days ago
- Politics
- New York Times
A Cutting French Senator Becomes Trump's European Nemesis
At a recent ceremony in Vichy, France, commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, a small, dapper man stepped forward from the crowd to place a wreath at the foot of a monument to the dead. He listened to students speak of endangered peace, the defense of French values and the fascist scourge that led to Hitler's gas chambers. The seemingly unremarkable face in the crowd was Senator Claude Malhuret, who has become President Trump's European nemesis. His barbed speeches, viewed tens of millions of times, have cast the president as an 'incendiary emperor' and suggested that 'never before has anyone so trampled on the Constitution.' With a scathing directness little heard from politicians in the United States and prompted by what he sees as a presidential assault on America's essential checks and balances, Mr. Malhuret has compared Mr. Trump to two tyrannical Roman emperors, Nero and Caligula. But he has added that, if Caligula named his horse a consul, 'at least that horse did no harm to anyone.' The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the senator's onslaught. Mr. Malhuret, 75, a retired physician and a right-leaning centrist, was the mayor of Vichy for 28 years until 2017. The town in central France is a symbol of the country's wartime ignominy. From 1940 to 1944, it was the capital of Marshal Philippe Pétain's regime, which collaborated with Nazi Germany to send some 76,000 Jews to their deaths in Hitler's camps. So it was natural to ask him if Vichy's past inspired his fierce stand against what he sees as an American tilt toward tyranny. 'You know people still come here and expect to see men with little Hitler mustaches,' Mr. Malhuret said. 'The so-called regime of Vichy should be called the regime of the French State or of Pétain. By the time I took office here, I was already a visceral antitotalitarian, whether of the right or left.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
08-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump Is Nero While Washington Burns
Updated: 2025-03-08 07:00:00 Editor's Note: On Tuesday, a French senator, Claude Malhuret, gave a powerful speech about the implications for Europe of the reversal of American policy toward Ukraine. Malhuret is the former mayor of the town of Vichy as well as a doctor and an epidemiologist, and the former head of Doctors Without Borders. He is a member of the center-right Horizons party representing the district of Allier. The speech, whose dark urgency and stark rhetorical force made it a social-media sensation, follows, translated and adapted by The Atlantic. Europe is at a crucial juncture of its history. The American shield is slipping away, Ukraine risks being abandoned, and Russia is being strengthened. Washington has become the court of Nero: an incendiary emperor, submissive courtiers, and a buffoon on ketamine tasked with purging the civil service. This is a tragedy for the free world, but it's first and foremost a tragedy for the United States. [President Donald] Trump's message is that being his ally serves no purpose, because he will not defend you, he will impose more tariffs on you than on his enemies, and he will threaten to seize your territories, while supporting the dictators who invade you. The king of the deal is showing what the art of the deal is lying prostrate. He thinks he will intimidate China by capitulating to Russian President Vladimir Putin, but China's President Xi Jinping, faced with such wreckage, is undoubtedly accelerating his plans to invade Taiwan. Never in history has a president of the United States surrendered to the enemy. Never has one supported an aggressor against an ally, issued so many illegal decrees, and sacked so many military leaders in one go. Never has one trampled on the American Constitution, while threatening to disregard judges who stand in his way, weaken countervailing powers, and take control of social media. This is not a drift to illiberalism; this is the beginning of the seizure of democracy. Let us remember that it only took one month, three weeks, and two days to bring down the Weimar Republic and its constitution. [Read: How Hitler dismantled democracy in 53 days] I have confidence in the solidity of American democracy, and the country is already protesting. But in one month, Trump has done more harm to America than in the four years of his last presidency. We were at war with a dictator; now we are fighting against a dictator supported by a traitor. Eight days ago, at the very moment when Trump was patting French President Emmanuel Macron on the back at the White House, the United States voted at the United Nations with Russia and North Korea against the Europeans demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops. Two days later, in the Oval Office, the draft-dodger was giving moral and strategic lessons to the Ukrainian president and war hero, Volodymyr Zelensky, before dismissing him like a stable boy, ordering him to submit or resign. That night, he took another step into disgrace by halting the delivery of promised weapons. What should we do in the face of such betrayal? The answer is simple: Stand firm. And above all, make no mistake. The defeat of Ukraine would be the defeat of Europe. The Baltic states, Georgia, and Moldova are already on the list. Putin's goal is to return to the Yalta Agreement, where half the continent was ceded to Stalin. The countries of the global South are waiting for the outcome of the conflict to decide whether they should continue to respect Europe, or whether they are now free to trample it. What Putin wants is the end of the world order the United States and its allies established 80 years ago, in which the first principle was the prohibition of acquiring territory by force. This idea is at the very foundation of the UN, where today Americans vote in favor of the aggressor and against the aggressed, because the Trumpian vision coincides with Putin's: a return to spheres of influence, where great powers dictate the fate of small nations. Greenland, Panama, and Canada are mine. Ukraine, the Baltics, and Eastern Europe are yours. Taiwan and the South China Sea are his. At the Mar-a-Lago dinner parties of golf-playing oligarchs, this is called 'diplomatic realism.' We are therefore alone. But the narrative that Putin cannot be resisted is false. Contrary to Kremlin propaganda, Russia is doing poorly. In three years, the so-called second army in the world has managed to grab only crumbs from a country with about a quarter its population. [Read: Russia is not winning] With interest rates at 21 percent, the collapse of foreign currency and gold reserves, and a demographic crisis, Russia is on the brink. The American lifeline to Putin is the biggest strategic mistake ever made during a war. The shock is violent, but it has one virtue. The Europeans are coming out of denial. They understood in a single day in Munich that the survival of Ukraine and the future of Europe are in their hands, and that they have three imperatives. Accelerate military aid to Ukraine to compensate for the American abandonment, so that Ukraine can hang on, and of course to secure its and Europe's place at the negotiating table. This will be costly. It will require ending the taboo on using Russia's frozen assets. It will require bypassing Moscow's accomplices within Europe itself through a coalition that includes only willing countries, and the United Kingdom of course. Second, demand that any agreement include the return of kidnapped children and prisoners, as well as absolute security guarantees. After Budapest, Georgia, and Minsk, we know what Putin's agreements are worth. These guarantees require sufficient military force to prevent a new invasion. Finally, and most urgently because it will take the longest, we must build that neglected European defense, which has relied on the American security umbrella since 1945 and which was shut down after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The task is Herculean, but history books will judge the leaders of today's democratic Europe by its success or failure. Friedrich Merz has just declared that Europe needs its own military alliance. This is a recognition that France has been right for decades in advocating for strategic autonomy. Now it must be built. This will require massive investment to replenish the European Defense Fund beyond the Maastricht debt criteria, harmonize weapons and munitions systems, accelerate European Union membership for Ukraine, which now has the leading army in Europe, rethink the role and conditions of nuclear deterrence based on French and British capabilities, and relaunch missile-shield and satellite programs. Europe can become a military power again only by becoming an industrial power again. But the real rearmament of Europe is its moral rearmament. We must convince public opinion in the face of war weariness and fear, and above all in the face of Putin's collaborators on the far right and far left. They say they want peace. What neither they nor Trump says is that their peace is capitulation, the peace of defeat, the replacement of a de Gaullian Zelensky by a Ukrainian Pétain under Putin's peace of collaborators who, for three years, have refused to support the Ukrainians in any way. [Read: What Europe fears] Is this the end of the Atlantic alliance? The risk is great. But in recent days, Zelensky's public humiliation and all the crazy decisions taken over the past month have finally stirred Americans into action. Poll numbers are plummeting. Republican elected officials are greeted by hostile crowds in their constituencies. Even Fox News is becoming critical. The Trumpists are no longer at the height of glory. They control the executive branch, Congress, the Supreme Court, and social media. But in American history, the supporters of freedom have always won. They are starting to raise their heads. The fate of Ukraine will be decided in the trenches, but it also depends on those who defend democracy in the United States, and here, on our ability to unite Europeans and find the means for our common defense, to make Europe the power it once was and hesitates to become again. Our parents defeated fascism and communism at the cost of great sacrifice. The task of our generation is to defeat the totalitarianisms of the 21st century. Long live free Ukraine, long live democratic Europe. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
08-03-2025
- Politics
- Atlantic
Trump Is Nero While Washington Burns
Editor's Note: On Tuesday, a French senator, Claude Malhuret, gave a powerful speech about the implications for Europe of the reversal of American policy toward Ukraine. Malhuret is the former mayor of the town of Vichy as well as a doctor and an epidemiologist, and the former head of Doctors Without Borders. He is a member of the center-right Horizons party representing the district of Allier. The speech, whose dark urgency and stark rhetorical force made it a social-media sensation, follows, translated and adapted by The Atlantic. Europe is at a crucial juncture of its history. The American shield is slipping away, Ukraine risks being abandoned, and Russia is being strengthened. Washington has become the court of Nero: an incendiary emperor, submissive courtiers, and a buffoon on ketamine tasked with purging the civil service. This is a tragedy for the free world, but it's first and foremost a tragedy for the United States. [President Donald] Trump's message is that being his ally serves no purpose, because he will not defend you, he will impose more tariffs on you than on his enemies, and he will threaten to seize your territories, while supporting the dictators who invade you. The king of the deal is showing what the art of the deal is lying prostrate. He thinks he will intimidate China by capitulating to Russian President Vladimir Putin, but China's President Xi Jinping, faced with such wreckage, is undoubtedly accelerating his plans to invade Taiwan. Never in history has a president of the United States surrendered to the enemy. Never has one supported an aggressor against an ally, issued so many illegal decrees, and sacked so many military leaders in one go. Never has one trampled on the American Constitution, while threatening to disregard judges who stand in his way, weaken countervailing powers, and take control of social media. This is not a drift to illiberalism; this is the beginning of the seizure of democracy. Let us remember that it only took one month, three weeks, and two days to bring down the Weimar Republic and its constitution. I have confidence in the solidity of American democracy, and the country is already protesting. But in one month, Trump has done more harm to America than in the four years of his last presidency. We were at war with a dictator; now we are fighting against a dictator supported by a traitor. Eight days ago, at the very moment when Trump was patting French President Emmanuel Macron on the back at the White House, the United States voted at the United Nations with Russia and North Korea against the Europeans demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops. Two days later, in the Oval Office, the draft-dodger was giving moral and strategic lessons to the Ukrainian president and war hero, Volodymyr Zelensky, before dismissing him like a stable boy, ordering him to submit or resign. That night, he took another step into disgrace by halting the delivery of promised weapons. What should we do in the face of such betrayal? The answer is simple: Stand firm. And above all, make no mistake. The defeat of Ukraine would be the defeat of Europe. The Baltic states, Georgia, and Moldova are already on the list. Putin's goal is to return to the Yalta Agreement, where half the continent was ceded to Stalin. The countries of the global South are waiting for the outcome of the conflict to decide whether they should continue to respect Europe, or whether they are now free to trample it. What Putin wants is the end of the world order the United States and its allies established 80 years ago, in which the first principle was the prohibition of acquiring territory by force. This idea is at the very foundation of the UN, where today Americans vote in favor of the aggressor and against the aggressed, because the Trumpian vision coincides with Putin's: a return to spheres of influence, where great powers dictate the fate of small nations. Greenland, Panama, and Canada are mine. Ukraine, the Baltics, and Eastern Europe are yours. Taiwan and the South China Sea are his. At the Mar-a-Lago dinner parties of golf-playing oligarchs, this is called 'diplomatic realism.' We are therefore alone. But the narrative that Putin cannot be resisted is false. Contrary to Kremlin propaganda, Russia is doing poorly. In three years, the so-called second army in the world has managed to grab only crumbs from a country with about a quarter its population. With interest rates at 21 percent, the collapse of foreign currency and gold reserves, and a demographic crisis, Russia is on the brink. The American lifeline to Putin is the biggest strategic mistake ever made during a war. The shock is violent, but it has one virtue. The Europeans are coming out of denial. They understood in a single day in Munich that the survival of Ukraine and the future of Europe are in their hands, and that they have three imperatives. Accelerate military aid to Ukraine to compensate for the American abandonment, so that Ukraine can hang on, and of course to secure its and Europe's place at the negotiating table. This will be costly. It will require ending the taboo on using Russia's frozen assets. It will require bypassing Moscow's accomplices within Europe itself through a coalition that includes only willing countries, and the United Kingdom of course. Second, demand that any agreement include the return of kidnapped children and prisoners, as well as absolute security guarantees. After Budapest, Georgia, and Minsk, we know what Putin's agreements are worth. These guarantees require sufficient military force to prevent a new invasion. Finally, and most urgently because it will take the longest, we must build that neglected European defense, which has relied on the American security umbrella since 1945 and which was shut down after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The task is Herculean, but history books will judge the leaders of today's democratic Europe by its success or failure. Friedrich Merz has just declared that Europe needs its own military alliance. This is a recognition that France has been right for decades in advocating for strategic autonomy. Now it must be built. This will require massive investment to replenish the European Defense Fund beyond the Maastricht debt criteria, harmonize weapons and munitions systems, accelerate European Union membership for Ukraine, which now has the leading army in Europe, rethink the role and conditions of nuclear deterrence based on French and British capabilities, and relaunch missile-shield and satellite programs. Europe can become a military power again only by becoming an industrial power again. But the real rearmament of Europe is its moral rearmament. We must convince public opinion in the face of war weariness and fear, and above all in the face of Putin's collaborators on the far right and far left. They say they want peace. What neither they nor Trump says is that their peace is capitulation, the peace of defeat, the replacement of a de Gaullian Zelensky by a Ukrainian Pétain under Putin's peace of collaborators who, for three years, have refused to support the Ukrainians in any way. Is this the end of the Atlantic alliance? The risk is great. But in recent days, Zelensky's public humiliation and all the crazy decisions taken over the past month have finally stirred Americans into action. Poll numbers are plummeting. Republican elected officials are greeted by hostile crowds in their constituencies. Even Fox News is becoming critical. The Trumpists are no longer at the height of glory. They control the executive branch, Congress, the Supreme Court, and social media. But in American history, the supporters of freedom have always won. They are starting to raise their heads. The fate of Ukraine will be decided in the trenches, but it also depends on those who defend democracy in the United States, and here, on our ability to unite Europeans and find the means for our common defense, to make Europe the power it once was and hesitates to become again. Our parents defeated fascism and communism at the cost of great sacrifice. The task of our generation is to defeat the totalitarianisms of the 21st century. Long live free Ukraine, long live democratic Europe.
CNN
07-03-2025
- Politics
- CNN
‘The beginning of the seizure of democracy': French politician takes aim at President Trump
French politician Claude Malhuret criticized the United States' changing policy toward Ukraine and took aim at President Donald Trump during a general session of the French Senate on Tuesday.
CNN
06-03-2025
- Politics
- CNN
‘The beginning of the seizure of democracy': French politician takes aim at President Trump
French politician Claude Malhuret criticized the United States' changing policy toward Ukraine and took aim at President Donald Trump during a general session of the French Senate on Tuesday.
